Applying to Graduate School

Hello everyone and welcome. We'll get started in just a moment or two. I'm going to give everybody a chance to get logged in.

It looks like things have slowed down a little bit. So I thank you for joining us today for this session of grad week for applying to Graduate School. My name is Rebecca Johnson. I'm one of the associate directors in the admissions office. Joining me today is Bryce Clement, one of our admissions counselors, who's going to be overseeing the chat. So you're welcome to ask any questions you want within the chat box. We will either address them during the presentation or at the conclusion of the presentation.

Please do not include any personally identifiable information within the chat, though we do want to protect your privacy through the application process. So if you have specific questions about your application, I encourage you to reach out to us at admissions@uis.edu and we will gladly address that either today or in the near future. OK, so let's go ahead and get started.

So for today's agenda, I'm going to go over a little bit about the University of Illinois, Springfield, where we're located, what type of institution we are. I'm going to talk about different options for graduate study that you have at UIS, go through the application process and again, as time allows, we'll take some questions at the end.

So at the University of Illinois, Springfield is considered a mid sized university and we are located in the state capital of Illinois. So we are not considered a large research institution. And I'll talk a little bit more about our demographics in just a moment. But we do have that tradition of educating public servants and leaders. While our students do have research opportunities, when our students graduate, they have exposure and that skill set that employers are looking for so that you can really operate.

To be successful in today's very connected and complex world.

About 25% of the college educated workforce in the Springfield area has a connection to the University of Illinois Springfield. And so that gives you great networking opportunities if you're a student on campus at US. But if you're looking at participating in some of our online programs, we have alumni all over the United States as well as the world. So those connections are still going to be available to you as you take that next step in your professional career.

So the University of Illinois, Springfield is located in the Midwestern part of the United States, in the state of Illinois, which is highlighted there in blue.

And then specifically within the state of Illinois, we are very centrally located. A lot of times people describe how far away things are by how long it takes to drive. We are about 3 hours South of Chicago and about an hour and a half northeast of Saint Louis. And so these are easily accessible for our students, both by train as well as by car. So there's lots of opportunities for us students, I apologize on campus to really do have opportunities here in the city.

And as well as to explore our surrounding area as well. The campus is about 3 square kilometers. And I do apologize, I usually do international presentations, hence the metric system here. But the campus or the city itself has about 120,000 people in it.

So again, Springfield is not a huge metropolitan city, but there are lots of opportunities for you to get involved in the surrounding community and for the community to get involved with the Springfield campus.

As you were looking at different graduate opportunities, I want to point out that UIS is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission and make sure that all of the graduate schools you are considering do have accreditation at the regional or national level. This is very important to make sure that the credential you earn is being recognized because you don't want to put forth all of that work only to have it not be recognized later on down the road.

US is part of the University of Illinois system. There are three schools within the University of Illinois system, Springfield Urbana Champaign, which is a large research institution, as well as Chicago located in the city of Chicago itself. Each of the campuses does operate independently from one another, so if you're interested in a program that's available at two or even three of the campuses, you will need to submit an application individually to each of those campuses. The ambition?

Criteria for the different programs may vary as well, so you'll need to pay attention to those details.

So a little bit more about the University of Illinois, Springfield. As I said, we are a smaller campus. In the fall of 2022, we had about 4200 students enrolled at UIS split between our on campus and our online opportunities. So about 1/3 of our students do complete their coursework entirely online, including many at the graduate level. And this is something that we have been a strong leader in for many years, even well before the pandemic and so the faculty members that you will have in these online.

Classes are the same ones that are teaching classes on campus.

Our undergraduate and graduate ratios are almost even. So we do have a very large graduate population at UIS, and you can see what the average undergraduate and graduate age is.

The little history about UIS is that it was founded as a degree completion institution. And so students came to us to finish their bachelor's degree and then we expanded into Masters programs. We are a regional university, meaning we serve a lot of students within about 100 to 150 miles of campus. And a lot of those students might be working full time, have families, have other responsibilities, and so we have a lot of students who attend not only full time on campus and online, but also complete their graduate course.

Work part time and so there are lots of opportunities available to you as a student here at UIS.

We are a very student focused institution. If you are taking classes on campus, your classrooms are going to be small. We don't have any lecture halls here at UIS. Our largest classroom holds 50 to 60 students, which is very different than many other institutions. You get the opportunity to know your faculty members, to know your fellow classmates. Again, working on those networking opportunities so that after you graduate and you're continuing in your career, you have those opportunities to really form strong connections.

In various sectors of business.

Our degrees are housed in four different colleges, our College of business and Management, Health Sciences and technology, liberal arts and social sciences, and public affairs and education. So the colleges are divided up with programs of similar interest or backgrounds.

And the faculty members that you will have are going to be experts within their field and often teach in different subject areas, but within that one college.

So as you're looking for Graduate School options here at UIS, there are a couple of different options available to you. So on campus classes are going to be taught entirely on campus. At UIS, we have over 30 different graduate programs taught through UIS on campus. And if you're an international student wanting to study in the United States are on campus, programs would make you eligible for your F1 student visa. We also have many online opportunities available to our students.

These online programs can be earned from anywhere in the world or within the United States, and as I mentioned before, they are taught by the same faculty who are teaching on campus as well. More than 20 graduate programs can be earned entirely online, so those options are available to you even if you aren't able to physically come to campus.

Another definition I want to highlight, because sometimes it can be confusing for students, is the difference between degree seeking and a non degree seeking student. If you're applying for a degree seeking program, you are applying to earn that complete credential or that complete degree through the University of Illinois Springfield. This could be online programs or on campus programs.

You can add additional certificates to this degree, and one way to think about that is your main program is your major and that certificate would be considered your minor, and so there are lots of opportunities to really expand your personal skills and knowledge while still earning that masters or doctoral degree here at UIS.

In the United States, for those citizens, if you are in a degree seeking program, you would be eligible for federal financial aid as well as potentially some institutional financial aid if you are a degree seeking student. The other option is a non degree seeking student. There are within this you could come to just take a class or two just on an area that you might be interested in, maybe to expand a single skill set. Or you can come and earn a certificate program and these certificate programs are available.

Both on campus and online, their certificate programs are going to be a little bit shorter. Usually it's three to five classes to complete that certificate program within one specific area, such as a certificate program in epidemiology or our Superintendent Endorsement certificate. Lots of those different options available. In most cases, if you are a non degree seeking student, you will not be eligible for federal financial aid as a U.S. citizen, but there are some exceptions.

In our College of Education, so I encourage you to reach out to us for those specific examples.

So when you're looking at applying to the University of Illinois, Springfield, some basic minimum requirements for you to keep in mind is that to receive full admission to UIS, you have to have at least a 2.5 GPA on a 4.0 scale. Now with that in mind, some of our programs do have higher GPA requirements. So just because you might have that 2.5 GPA doesn't mean you'll be admissible to some of the other programs or some programs here at UIS. I do encourage you before you submit your application.

To look at the individual program requirements for the program you are interested in. Those can be found either on the program's website or within our academic catalog, and you'll be able to see what those minimum GPA's might be, course prerequisites that there might be, as well as additional requirements such as a writing sample or specific numbers of letters of recommendation. It's the applicant's responsibility to make sure you're aware of those prerequisite requirements, so make sure you really pay attention to this before.

Please submit your application because it takes a lot of work to submit that application sometimes, and I want to make sure that you're going to be the strongest applicant when everything does go through.

The application is entirely online. You can fill it out at www.uis.edu/apply and after you create your account, there'll be three different options available to you for graduate studies. If you're wanting to enroll in an on campus graduate program, you will select the Graduate School option. If you're wanting to enroll in an online graduate program, you will need to select the online option if you're wanting to enroll in just a certificate program.

Or to take a class or two for fun, you'll need to complete the non degree seeking application. The applications are a little bit different just based on different requirements that we need to collect. So make sure you are completing the correct application so that you don't have to go back and start a new application later.

After you submit your application, you'll need to provide us with your official transcripts. Transcripts from all colleges and universities that you have attended will need to be sent to us by those colleges or universities. We do not accept transcripts directly from students, nor will we make admissions decisions based on unofficial transcripts, so you'll need to make sure you have enough time to get those documents to us. If you have any academic coursework that was completed outside of the United States, your transcript will have to be evaluated.

And I have a little bit of information about that in just a moment. And if English is not the official language of your country, you will also need to provide English proficiency exams, which I will also talk about in just a moment.

I do want to emphasize some advisory deadlines for you, though. If you are a US applicant here in the United States already, or you're applying to one of our online graduate programs, we encourage that your application and all submitted materials be provided to us by the deadlines here on the screen. So if you're applying for our fall semester, which starts in August of each year, you need to have that complete application by the middle of July if you're applying for a January term, or our spring semester that complete application.

Needs to be done by the middle of November, and if you're applying to one of our summer programs or the summer semester, the application needs to be complete by the middle of April now. Keep in mind though that some of our programs will close their application before these advisory deadlines.

There are also other programs such as graduate assistantships and internships that operate on different timelines as well. So you need to be mindful of that if you're looking at a program that might close early or have an earlier application or if you're really interested in the funding opportunities, so our graduate assistantship and internship programs.

If you are a student who will need an F1 student visa to study here at UIS on campus.

You will need to provide your application in supporting materials earlier. So for our fall semester, we need that complete application, including evaluated transcripts, no later than May 15th. For our spring semester, the deadline is around November 15th and we do not admit international students to our summer term except in our masters of Athletic Training program. This is because we do not offer enough on campus courses during the summer consistently to meet these requirements and so.

International students needing an on or needing an F1 student visa can only apply to the fall or spring semesters. If you do submit an application to the summer term, you will be required to defer your application to either the fall or the spring unless you are applying for the masters of athletic training program.

And again, some of the programs will close their application before these deadlines. So we really encourage you to submit your application 6 to 12 months in advance so that you have time to be admitted into your specific program and as an international student, have time to go through the visa and immigration process.

If you do have international credentials that require that evaluation, there are two options available to you. You can either have your transcripts evaluated through a staff member at the University of Illinois, Springfield. If you do have a staff member here, evaluate your transcripts. There is a $150.00 credential evaluation fee that you will have to pay, but that is a flat fee no matter how many transcripts you need to have evaluated. The other option is a Macy's member evaluation, and Macy's stands for the National Association.

Credential evaluation services. We have 5 preferred members for our Macy's evaluations. That includes ECE Educational Perspectives, international education evaluations, or i.e.

I, uh, span Tran as well as world education services, or West.

So the information about that is available on our website. If you do use a Macy's member for the evaluation, you will not have to pay for the $150.00 credential evaluation fee to UIS, but those Macy's members will charge a fee for evaluating your transcripts. The fees will vary based on the different company, so I encourage you to look at the different options available to you and choose the one that is the best financial choice for you.

You will also need to view on our website what the country specific requirements are for your documents, because different countries will have different requirements.

If English is not the official language of your home country and you're coming from outside of the United States, you will also need to provide an English proficiency exam. We accept a wide range of different exams and so you know you can look at our website see which ones are best for you. Those exam scores are valid for two years and must be valid at the time you enroll at UIS. We do have a list of countries who are exempt for this English proficiency requirement listed on our website.

So you'll be able to see if you need to send that exam in or not. The scores also do need to be sent to us directly by the testing company.

All right, I think, Oh my goodness, I've come to the end. So if you do have any questions, I'm going to look in the chat for just a moment. You can either e-mail directly at international-admissions@uis.edu, or you can e-mail us at admissions@uis.edu. Both are good options. I again, I usually work with international students, so I apologize for the international e-mail address here, but the other option is admissions at uis.edu.

And that will connect you with your admission counselor within our office.

Alright, I'm looking to see if we have any questions in the chat and grace it just dropped that e-mail address into the chat as well. So if there aren't any questions you are welcome to reach out to us.

And I thank you for joining us today. And again, this presentation was recorded. So we will have this available on our website very soon so that you can come back and refer to it again. So I hope you have the great rest of your day.